Amid a craft brew boom it helped create, shop closing
It was the shop that catapulted the careers of Houston’s earliest craft brewers.
Brock Wagner, cofounder of St. Arnold Brewing Co., developed one of the brewery’s first recipes — a German Kristalweizen called Texas Wheat — on the sidewalk in front of the shop’s Rice Village location in 1993. A decade later, Aaron Corsi shopped at the store every weekend before he cofounded 8th Wonder Brewery in 2012.
“If it weren’t for DeFalco’s, I wouldn’t have 8th Wonder Brewery,” Corsi said. “All of these people who own craft breweries, we learned and honed our skills from people like Scott.”
For nearly five decades, DeFalco’s Home Wine & Beer Supplies and its longtime owner, Scott Birdwell, offered Houston homebrewers the ingredients, equipment, classes and advice to transform barley, hops, yeast and wa
ter into homemade beer. In the process, Birdwell and his shop helped fuel the growth of craft beer in the Houston area, which boasted 44 craft breweries in 2018, more than double the number of local breweries in 2013.
“We were the AAA team for the big leagues,” Birdwell said. “We probably had 70, maybe more craft brewers who came through our shop.”
But that success also sowed the seeds of the homebrew store’s destruction. The rise of craft breweries has, for many beer lovers, obviated the need to do it yourself, tanking demand for homebrew supplies. Sales have stagnated in recent years and more homebrew shops are closing than opening.
DeFalco’s — Houston’s oldest and largest homebrew shop — is the latest to shutter after 48 years in business. The retailer’s last day will be Sept. 8.
“It used to be if you wanted good beer, you had to make it,” Birdwell said. “Now, those who used to brew beer, go out.”
Founding brewers
Homebrewing, a national pastime since the days of the Founding Fathers, is a labor of love for an estimated 1.1 million Americans who take a certain pride and satisfaction in making their own beer.
An ale can take upward of eight or nine hours to prepare and brew, and three weeks to ferment before one can drink and bottle it. At DeFalco’s, homebrew ingredients cost between $25 and $65 per 5-gallon batch, and starter kits with equipment, such as fermenters, funnels and siphons, can run upward of $120.
Meanwhile, craft beer has become ubiquitous. Craft breweries have more than quadrupled over the last decade, to 7,346 craft breweries in 2018, up from 1,600, according to the Brewers Association, a Colorado trade group representing craft brewers, suppliers and distributors. The association expects the number of craft breweries nationally to exceed 8,000 by the end of this year.
“People are questioning the eight, nine hours it takes to make beer when they can go around the corner and buy it,” said Bev Blackwood, the editor and publisher of Austin-based Southwest Brewing News and a former beer production manager at St. Arnold.
Other factors, including the rise of e-commerce, a robust job market and changing consumer preferences, have also lessened the demand for homebrewing supplies.
As a result, homebrew shops are closing. Their numbers nationally have shrunk to 656 stores from a peak of 815 in 2015, according to the American Homebrewers Association.
Seven Houston-area shops have closed since 2011, including All About Brew in Richmond and Cypress Grape and Grain in Tomball. DeFalco’s, which sold more than 2,000 products out of its 7,000-square-foot store and warehouse at 9223 Stella Link Road, is the largest and most prominent Houston-area shop to shutter.
“You hate to hear another shop falling by the wayside,” said Dan Pishlo, general manager of Austin Homebrew Supply, the largest homebrew shop in Texas. “I hear homebrew shops closing all the time, but DeFalco’s closing is sad.”
Better beer
DeFalco’s opened in 1971, before homebrewing was even legal in the United States.
Its original proprietor, Frank DeFalco, was interested in capitalizing on the home winemaking craze, which was legal at the time. After seeking approval from the Texas Legislature, DeFalco opened his eponymous store on University Boulevard in Rice Village. The shop carried mostly winemaking supplies, but also homebrewing ingredients and equipment, advertised for making “sparkling barley wine,” Birdwell said.
Birdwell got into homebrewing after graduating from Rice University and spending the summer of 1977 traveling across Europe in a Volkswagen Golf with two friends and a religion professor. He noticed homebrewing kits were sold in convenience stores across Germany, the former Czechoslovakia and the Netherlands.
“Everywhere I went, the beer was better,” Birdwell said.
After he returned stateside, Birdwell became a regular at DeFalco’s and began working as a store manager there shortly after. In December 1980, Birdwell bought the shop.
Homebrewing picked up after Congress lifted the Prohibitionera federal ban on homebrewing in 1978. It took off locally after Texas legalized homebrewing in 1983. To celebrate the end of the Texas ban, DeFalco’s homebrew club — the Foam Rangers — hosted a pub crawl, taking revelers to Richmond Arms and Ale House in a yellow school bus.
The hobby took off again in the early 1990s (Birdwell met his wife, Alison, at a homebrewing class in 1996) then shortly after the financial crisis of 2008, when a legion of unemployed people had time to devote to the hobby. But the homebrew craze began to wane about five years ago, just as DeFalco’s opened a second location in Clear Lake. Birdwell ended up closing the Clear Lake shop after less than three years, and his staff at his south Houston store dwindled to three full-time and three part-time employees, down from a peak of 10 full-time workers eight years ago.
Sales there started to fall last summer, and by the holidays, they were at a crawl. Come Christmas, usually the shop’s busiest time of the year, “we sold almost no homebrew kits,” Birdwell said.
Birdwell hoped business might pick up this year, but sales continued to plunge 30 percent from a year ago. He thought about moving to a smaller store with lower overhead, but Birdwell, 66, decided he didn’t have it in him to make it to the next upswing in homebrewing. DeFalco’s is holding a liquidation sale, offering a 20 percent discount on everything in stock while supplies last.
“DeFalco’s was really the mecca for homebrewing in Houston, and so many homebrewers and craft brewers have been influenced by Scott,” said Wagner, the St. Arnold co-founder. “It’s certainly the end of an era, and I’m sorry to see a store like that close.”
Universal language
DeFalco’s closure will leave a void in Houston’s homebrewing community, industry leaders said. The store has one of the largest selections of beer-making ingredients, including 50 types of hops, 70 strains of yeast and 75 types of grains from the U.S., Germany, Belgium, United Kingdom and Netherlands.
For Houston’s Ethiopian community, DeFalco’s was the main shop for ingredients to make Tella, a traditional beer brewed from teff, sorghum, barley or maize. Hundreds of Ethiopian and Eritrean customers would shop at DeFalco’s for various grains to brew Tella for their religious holidays.
Makida Belay, 30, came in on a recent Friday to purchase 45 pounds of British brown malt to make Tella for the upcoming Ashenda, an Ethiopian holiday honoring the Virgin Mary, held on Aug. 24. The Houston resident wondered where she could find grains to make Tella after DeFalco’s closes.
“I’m not happy,” Belay said. “This is the only shop I know where we can find it.”
The staff at DeFalco’s also served as a repository of information about homebrewing techniques and equipment. While online retailers may be more convenient, brick-and-mortar stores can often provide better customer service, said Landon Weiershausen, founder of Farmboy, a local homebrew shop with locations in Garden Oaks and Katy.
“Amazon doesn’t have a homebrew hotline to offer advice and answer questions,” Weiershausen said. “It’s your local provider.”
DeFalco’s also served as the primary meeting place for the Foam Rangers, Houston’s oldest homebrew club. The club, which started with six members in 1981, now has about 100 members. Birdwell was a founding member, and Bev Blackwood, the editor of Southwest Brewing News, served as the “Grand Wazoo,” a leadership role denoted by a fez cap.
It’s unclear where the Foam Rangers, which educates members on homebrewing techniques and styles, will meet after DeFalco’s closes.
“DeFalco’s closing is a pretty big loss for homebrewers,” Blackwood said, “but it’s a devastating loss for the Foam Rangers.”
Nearly made it
Birdwell paced DeFalco’s on a recent Friday afternoon, wearing a Texas Craft Brewers T-shirt that read “Support Your Local Craft Brewer.”
All along the walls of his shop, nestled between Prohibition-era photos and a mural of winemakers and brewmasters painted by members of the Foam Rangers, are signs from craft breweries around the country, including St. Arnold, Boulevard Brewing Co. and the now defunct Fort Bend Brewing Co.
Despite DeFalco’s looming demise, Birdwell said he doesn’t begrudge the craft brewers he’s helped over 41 years. In fact, he said he might work for a brewery after he closes shop.
“These are my friends,” Birdwell said, pointing to his shirt. “You want your friends to succeed.”
Mark Tarver, an avid amateur winemaker, came into DeFalco’s to purchase three 5-gallon buckets that he plans to use to transport grape juice back from his upcoming trip to the Texas Hill Country. The West Houston resident said he was surprised to find out DeFalco’s was closing. He had shopped there every two weeks for years, although lately, it’s been months since his last visit.
“It’s a tragic loss,” Tarver, 49, said. “The selection here is unbeatable. This was the go-to place for everything.”
As Birdwell rang Tarver up, he told his customer about DeFalco’s liquidation sale.
“We were hoping to make it to 50 (years),” Birdwell said.
“Didn’t quite make it,” Tarver said.
“Yeah, not going to make it.” “Sad to see you guys go.”